Of course I had never seen, much less ever heard about, this 1985 movie titled "Justice Ninja Style". Sure, I was 10 years old in 1985 and loved the ninja movies we could find on VHS back then. But "Justice Ninja Style" just wasn't a movie that made it to these parts back then. So as I stumbled upon it here in 2024, and remembering how cheesy the 1980s ninja movies were, of course I opted to watch it and see what director Parvin Tramel had to offer.
Sure, I wasn't really harboring any expectations to the movie, I mean, it was a low budget ninja movie that seemed to have never seen the light of day before. And given the campy contents of the ninja movies back in the 1980s, it wasn't as if this movie had an easy path carved out for it. So writers Parvin Tramel and Ron D. White didn't really hit a homerun here. I crumbled over laughing so hard about 52 minutes into the ordeal, when a guy ran out from a room yelling "Ninja! Ninja!" during the police officer's speech.
Of course I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, though I can't claim that I was particularly impressed with the acting performances that transpired on the screen.
The dialogue in the movie was pretty wooden. And the acting performances weren't exactly helping to make the delivery of the rigid and often cringeworthy dialogue any more watchable.
There are so many stupid things in the narrative. Such as why was there a ninja sitting in the shrubbery during the police brutality scene at the start of the movie. Well, sure, if the ninja wasn't there, then there was no motive for the storyline. But come on, it just made zero sense.
The first fight, a mere 6 minutes into the movie, was some of the most laughable and horrible fight scene that I have seen. It was filmed in slow motion, and it was so obvious that there was no contact between the lady's face and the police nightstick. And the fact that she died from such a hit was just hilarious. In fact the majority of the fight scenes throughout the course of the movie were horribly wooden and poorly executed, looking staged and insanely fake.
"Justice Ninja Style" was a bad movie, even in the ranks of campy 1980s ninja movies.
My rating of director Parvin Tramel's 1985 movie "Justice Ninja Style" lands on a three out of ten stars.
